In all of these resources you will find hands-on, language facilitated activities. Toddlers are already learning about the world around them using their senses without parents even being involved. Adding language to their activity is the key to vocabulary building on the concepts they are discovering.

One thing I am not going to add to this post is a link to a developmental checklist. You are probably more stressed than you need to be already. There are already to many people sharing their opinion on how you or your child should be.You don’t need a checklist, you just need to be an attentive, interactive and accessible mother. You can’t go wrong with that combination.

Language and Literacy

Read anything, talk about everything, play anytime, and enjoy music often together. It really can be that simple. Your child doesn’t have all the vocabulary needed to carry on a detailed conversation, but you fill in the blanks. Narrate your day. Ask and answer questions. Not only is your child learning vocabulary he hears repeated, but he is learning the complex patterns of language, the ups and downs of the voice, along with facial expressions and body language that accompanies language.

I think this pamphlet on Getting Ready to Read will help you get the idea and some simple activities to start with, I think you’ll find you are doing a lot of this already. You are just needing the confidence to keep moving forward. Relax! This is natural for you. You were made for this! You are the most important person in our child’s life.

Here is a great article by the NAEYC about Math Talk. No need to buy lots of materials. Math is everywhere! Make it fun and stress free. Learning can happen in everyday routines. Counting the number of carrots on the plate. Chatting about colors in the park. the shapes of a wheel, a table, the doorway. Playing with blocks can help build problem solving and spatial awareness skills needed later in math.

Don’t forget your library. Here are list of Math books for Children to begin discussion of math concepts and build vocabulary in context. If you can’t find these titles, search your library’s catalog for the types of books listed in the second article below.

Children at this age are learning the very basics of Social Studies concepts, “I am part of a bigger world”. They learn about themselves and how to interact socially within the specific environments they find themselves in, the home with family, playdates with friends of multiple ages, a Sunday school class with same-age peers, or in an adult situation where the activities are not centered on them. They learn about different social expectations in each of these situations.

Literacy is another way to learn about the people in the bigger world around them. In books they will encounter people and circumstances they might not experience directly. Videos can serve the same purpose, while also building vocabulary for these contexts. In addition, live WebCams for Social Studies and Science, like Wild Earth, can take your child to places he might never see otherwise.

Children will take these new concepts and mimic them in dramatic play, another way children will assimilate the new information, practicing vocabulary and developing problem solving skills for social situations.

Map Concepts can also be introduced at this age with simple activities like mapping the house (with Mommy’s facilitating) or finding places on a map or globe. Here are a couple of article talking more about developmentally appropriate objectives for Social Studies and some suggested activities and literature.

Here are some Social Studies Games at PBS that Mom and toddler can begin playing together while toddler gets and introduction into some basic social studies concept to build on.

This article focuses on the classroom, but the objectives in the right hand corner serve for a source of ideas for activities.

Preschool Social Skills for the world he’s in everyday. These are some of the first steps in learning the role he has in other people’s lives, in coming out of his egocentric perspective. When a toddler begins to learn that what he says and does affects the people around him. Toddlers can realize their power and learn self control in order to balance his wants in relationship to what others need. Reading Books about Feelings can help your child understand his own and appreciate that others feel them too.

Although we live in an age that is centered on communications in technology, writing a friendly letter is still a practice among those who desire to be more personal in their communication, whether to a friend afar or to thank a potential employer after a job interview.

As a teacher, I still wrote thank you notes to my students who provided me gifts of appreciation. The children loved to receive them. With the small gesture, they knew the appreciation was returned.

My own children love to receive cards and letters in the mail.
I know, I’d sing atop a mountain if I was to receive one that isn’t a bill.

While business communications make the most of the efficiency of an email or messenger program, nothing says “tender love and care” like a hand written letter.

Here, I have put together some resources for teaching and applying the art of letter writing through the friendly letter.

Letter GeneratorsWe recently picked up a book from the library in the children’s non-fiction section called How to Write a Letter. It included format, conversation topics, and how to address a letter . They have a series on different types of writing that we have been checking out one at a time. One of the things I love about using books over something online is that my 5 year old will see my 7 year old using it to learn how to write a letter and then she begins pulling out paper and pencil with him. Nevertheless, we find many useful tools on the internet for learning to include four interactives for writing last year when my son was less than willing to put pen to paper. One of these focuses on writing a friendly letter.

We love having a book in hand and I encourage the keeping of a journal in at least one subject. However, we have less space now, so online learning is convenient , but also fun and interactive. I’ll talk more about online learning in another post.

I love the Read Write Think site! Here is an interactive template or Letter Generator guiding the student through each step of the letter writing process.

This is an incomplete collection of Tappan’s work. She had a way of bringing history to life in her books. Perhaps it was her many years teaching and her in depth knowledge of literature that helped her achieve success.

The first part of this list was contributed by my friend, Allison. I will update as I find more titles.

Here is a sample lapbook from 1+1+1=1 to model after. I love this simple idea. Those are the best. The lapbook includes a poem, an easy reader, and copywork. We like to use a spiral notebook for ours and use duct tape on the spine for longevity. I think a word list would be a good addition. You could incorporate a word list into your mini-book or even into a word family wheel. You might also use these Editable Lapbook Pages to copy and paste word lists, your poems, or individual words with a picture on the cover.

The sample at the top used the poem as the copywork activity. You can easily make this yourself by copying and pasting the poems from Mrs. Alphabet (above) into handwriting generator like the one here at Handwriting Worksheets or by using the fonts here at the Learning Place.

One of the sites below shares how the author made her mini-books. It is so easy to make your own with the lists available in the above links. You could even incorporate lines from the poems or make your own simple sentences.

Storytime Standouts provides and shows you how to make your own word family flip books, as well as providing words and picture sheets. You could cut the sheets with words and pictures to staple into your own little book or have you child use for a matching game that is then pasted into the lapbooks. Be creative and have fun with it.

About 3 or 4 sections from the top, you’ll find a group of word family printables from The Measured Mom (again). She has a lot of pictures to use for word families. You could use them as a bingo type activity and then create your word wheel (below) using the word ending and pictures provided.

I think these could be a great addition to your lapbook. Word Wheels can include some of the words in the list, as well as pictures to match them. You could trace one of the pre-made word wheels to make your own template. If you make one in Word, you can add text/picture to it before printing or you can have those on a separate page for your child to cut and paste on.

ABC Teach has a huge selection of resources on the free portion of their site. Here are some word family wheels.